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Early Wednesday Russian border guards opened fire and killed one of four crewmembers on board a Japanese fishing boat in Russian territorial waters near the Kuril Islands.

The Russian patrol boat spotted the crab fishing boat Kisshin Maru-31 near the islands of Tanfiliyeva and Anuchina and fired warning shots ordering the boat to stop for inspection.

The 4.9-ton Japanese ship belonging to a fishery cooperative in Nemuro tried to escape in the direction of Japanese waters. Near the island of Signalny the crew, consisting of four crewmembers, started to throw their fish catch into the sea and the border guards opened fire. One person was killed, another three crewmembers escaped injury.

On board the Japanese ship the guards discovered 30 kilograms of crab and 10 kilograms of octopus. The guards also found 25 crab shares.

The ship is being towed to the city of Yuzhno-Kurilsk on the island of Kunashir for further investigation.
Japanese Foreign Ministry officials filed a protest against Russia during meeting with Mikhail Galuzin, minister-counsellor of the Russian Embassy in Tokyo.

The four southernmost islands in the Kuril chain south of Sakhalin were seized by the Soviet Union during the closing days of World War II, and since then Japan has tried to regain the islands of Kunashir, Iturup, and Shikotan, and Habomai islet group, referring to them as the Northern Territories. Russia claims the islands as part of the Kuril chain, while Japan says the four islands have historically been Japanese territory. The thorny issue of the Kurils has prevented the two nations from signing a peace treaty to formally end World War II.

Reporters from the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper contributed information from the Japan Coast Guard to this report.